For quite a few years now, I haven't wavered from the conviction that Gyorgy Ligeti is the greatest composer currently inhabiting our little planet.  Last night did nothing to shake that belief.  Present Music gave its final concert of the season in Milwaukee, and on the program was Ligeti's astonishing  "Síppal, dobbal, nádihegedűvel"  from the year 2000, for mezzo-soprano and four percussionists. Sitting in the middle of the percussion-oriented program, surrounded by crash-bang, high-caloric-low-nutrient fare from Christopher Rouse and Sven-David Sandstrom, the subtle mastery and sonic imagination of Ligeti's work burned through me like a laser. It's light-hearted and generous of spirit, but its simple textures are mystifying and mesmerizing. Ligeti at 83 is beyond all "-isms." His Hungarian-ness, his Central European-ness, is unmistakeable and links his music to the entire classical tradition that has come before. But his absorption of unbelievably diverse musical influences and their easy refraction through that tradition makes him unique in a world full of ungainly fusions of musics pretending to be successful compositions, like Dr. Mephisto's seven-assed Galapagos tortoise. [update 6/7: here is the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's review of the concert.]

On May 18, the House of Representatives approved an increase in the National Endowment for the Arts' budget in Fiscal Year 2007 to $129.4 million.

Just to put that in perspective: the financially strapped city of Berlin is aiming to reduce the municipal subsidy to its three opera houses to a mere $126 million by 2009.

The March 20, 2003 attack on Dora Farms near Baghdad  (the attempt to kill Saddam Hussein at the outset of the Iraq War) utilized (wasted might be a better word) at least 36 Tomahawk missiles. At a cost of $750,000 apiece, that comes to $27,000,000. That represents two and a half months of federal arts funding in America, thrown out the door in a couple of hours.

To appreciate the true financial cost of the Iraq War, well, let's just say the meter is running. Now imagine, just as a wild sort of fantasy, that all the money allocated for the Iraq War would instead be directed to the NEA. (Crazy, I know, but bear with me here.)  If maintained at the current budget level, that would mean that the NEA would be funded through the year...4215. Yes, I know, you have to factor for inflation. So let's be conservative and say the NEA would be safe at least till the year 3000.

On a less fantastical note, the $285 billion for the Iraq War would be enough to allow nearly 38,000,000 children to attend the Head Start program, or enough to hire nearly 5 million additional public school teachers for one year.  Remember all this next time some blowhard gets riled about some controversial art and starts attacking NEA funding as being a horrible waste of taxpayer dollars. Perspective is always useful. That's you, Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, I'm talking to...for voting for the (thankfully, failed) amendment to cut NEA funding by $30 million.

The crown jewel of South Carolina cultural life, the Spoleto Festival, holds its opening ceremonies tomorrow (May 26) at noon. I've known it as a performer and as a spectator over the years, and it is certainly one of the most special music festivals in the nation. Its setting in historic Charleston plays no small role in that "specialness"; no mystery, then, why the Chamber Music Concerts at the Dock Street Theater are so popular. You can find no better match of venue to art form than those, and so they come at the top of my list of recommended events to attend. Hosted in inimitably folksy style by Charles Wadsworth, there are an amazing 33 of these to pick from, featuring some of my favorite artists on the chamber music scene today: the St. Lawrence Quartet, flutist Tara O'Connor, cellist Andres Diaz, and many young up-and-coming talents.

Of the big productions (symphonic, opera, theatre) a couple stand out to my eye (disclaimer: tickets may already be sold out to some of these events, I have no idea---best to move fast if something strikes your fancy). The Don Giovanni production from last year got great word of mouth and is being reprised this season, with six performances. Mozart is, naturally, getting a lot of emphasis at Spoleto this year; each of the Chamber Music Concerts will include one of his works, there is the aforementioned Don Giovanni, and the Westminster Choir College with orchestra will perform Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor on June 5. Jennifer Larmore, who came to Spoleto years ago as a student at Westminster, returns as soloist.

A series of programs entitled "Intermezzi," gives you the chance to hear great works in more digestible format, i.e., shorter programs of a bit over an hour in length, at Grace Episcopal Church. Speaking of "digestible," that gives you all the more chance to linger over a meal at one of Charleston's many outstanding restaurants. The "Intermezzi" concert that has caught my eye is June 9, a program that includes Olivier Messiaen's "Oiseaux Exotiques," and Stravinsky's "Octet for Wind Instruments."

The real triumph of Spoleto is to be found in the amount and quality of 20th-century and new music they present. We have had some fantastic new music performances in this state this season (eighth blackbird in Greenville and Alarm Will Sound in Columbia spring to mind), but some of the fare at Spoleto is of a decidedly meatier nature, with more representation of European composers (Pierre Boulez, Johannes Maria Staud, as well as more experimental American ones (Peter Garland, John Cage). We have the conductor/composer John Kennedy to thank for this...John has been curating the Music in Time series at Spoleto for over 15 years and this year's edition looks especially fascinating. As usual, I personally will have to miss virtually the entire festival this year because of performances and other obligations elsewhere, but I am definitely attending the June 6 Music in Time concert. That features pianist Jenny Lin, who has been garnering much praise lately. That program includes works by Boulez, Toru Takemitsu, and Claude Vivier's scintillating piano work "Shiraz."

I would be remiss if I did not strongly recommend the offerings of Piccolo Spoleto, a parallel festival taking place simultaneously in the same striking locale of Charleston. Events are either free or quite low-cost. Piccolo Spoleto brings together some of the finest talent in this state and the Southeast region, in all the arts, visual, dance, music, theatre. Piccolo is a wonderful way to enjoy the Spoleto experience without breaking the bank and it also shows your support for the artists of this region.

You can follow the latest scoop from Spoleto via the Charleston Post and Courier's Spoleto blog, and the Charleston City Paper's slightly zippier Spoleto Buzz blog.

[update 5/26: Jeffrey Day, arts critic for "The State" newspaper here in Columbia, has his own Spoleto blog going, which should be highly entertaining and informative. ETV radio will have Spoleto coverage and interviews each weekday morning at 9:00 AM, with Marcus Overton as host; Columbia's ETV station is 91.3: more info on ETV's coverage here.]

Charleston Symphony musicians, after accepting a 17% pay cut in 2003, have had their salaries restored to the pre-cut 2003 levels, under a new one-year (!) contract finalized in recent negotiations. There are 46 core CSO musicians covered under this contract who perform in more than 100 concerts from mid-September to mid-June. A section player's salary after the restoration of the pay cut? $20,903 a year, or less than half of what Joshua Bell can earn from one recital date. [update 5/23: the "more than 100 concerts" figure comes from the Post and Courier story with link above...as I re-read that I'm sure that they must be including all kinds of school outreach concerts or runouts to senior citizen centers, etc. to get to that figure. Do they mean 100 services? Still, "It's Hard Out There For A...Classical Musician in a Mid-Sized American City."]

Right now through May 22 is SC Pride, organized by the SC Gay & Lesbian Pride Movement. Among cultural events happening within the framework of this event is the Pride Film Festival at the Nickelodeon theatre, running through this weekend. Check out their website for more info. The SCGLPM has put up a separate website for SC Pride events, and it can be found here. The big event is this Saturday, with a parade followed by an all-afternoon celebration at Martin Luther King Park near Five Points. Mayor Coble will be among those addressing the crowd Saturday, which I'm pleased to see.

The backstory to all of this year's events is the depressing and puzzling amendment to ban same-sex marriage which is on the ballot this coming November here in South Carolina. It may be a hopeless quest to forestall passage of that measure in this state, but it is still vital that people of character stand up for justice and fairness, at least to be counted. I say the amendment is puzzling because I cannot fathom why the extreme Christianists feel that the sanctity of their heterosexual marriages is threatened by allowing same-sex marriages. All I know is that, as someone in my second marriage, I've done my bit to dent the sanctity of the institution, and gay men and women certainly had nothing to do with that! I keep thinking of some of the most durable, long-lasting, committed relationships I know of, and a goodly number of those are same-sex relationships, some called marriages, some not. It grieves me to see how many in this nation seem to be in the grip of this strange obsession to ban gay marriage. At the same time, I am inspired by the courage of those who stand in opposition to this amendment and this bigotry, courage which is required (sadly) in even greater amount in this state. That courage will pay off eventually, though the beneficiaries may be future generations. Well, if you want to know more about what you can do, visit the website of the South Carolina Equality Coalition.